Eli Yasin, a resident of Chaghraq township in Aksu (in Chinese, Akesu) prefecture’s Onsu (Wensu) county, was sentenced in February after being held since May 2015, sources said, adding that authorities had suspected Yasin and family members who viewed the film with him of planning to go abroad “to wage jihad.”

Family circumstances argued against their having had such a plan, though, Hesen Eysa, security chief for Yasin’s Karasu village, told RFA’s Uyghur Service.

“All of them were over 40 years of age,” Eysa said. “They had a farm, and they were struggling to survive and provide for their children’s education.”

“They showed no signs of opposing the government. At least I never saw any signs of this,” he said.

“As a security chief, I am having a hard time explaining these charges to the people in my village.” […] [Source]

Chinese authorities claim numerous Uighur militants have joined the Islamic State and other militant groups operating closer to home in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The prospect of unrest and terrorist violence has led to ruthless crackdowns, including a raid last December when Chinese paramilitary forces killed 28 suspected militants in an operation that involved flushing the suspects out of a cave with flamethrowers.

As my colleague Simon Denyer has reported, Beijing employs rather heavy-handed policies when reckoning with religion in this restive corner of China. Authorities in Xinjiang have censored sermons delivered at mosques, forced public servants to forsake their fast and eat during the holy month of Ramadan, and have made devout Muslim men and women shave their bears and remove their veils.

“China wants Uighurs everywhere to know that the state is always watching them,” Memet Toxti, a Uighur dissident living in exile, told RFA. [Source]